Astrodigital

This reminds me of the old adage that the space shuttle's size was determined by the width of a horse. Not sure if it's actually true. https://astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Thanks for the Space Shuttle factoid, quite relevant to the OP article https://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Fun related story re: links to the past https://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

This backwards compatibility chain reminds me of the age old tale of how rockets are the width of two horses... (1) (1) http://astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html I'd be very leery of trusting the specifics too much. E.g. the reference to "Roman war chariots", which are not a thing the Romans ever used. Snopes entry: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/

>Stephenson’s narrow tracks had been introduced first. Originally designed to carry engines transporting coal for the northern mining industry, they were tailored to match the width needed for accommodating a horse between wagon shafts. there is also interesting related interpretation of Space Shuttle Booster width back to Roman times through the British narrow railway gauge http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Here's pretty much the same text dating back from 2000: http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html Snopes wrote about it: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/ It was also discussed at length here on HN 3 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20239682 And another debunking: https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2538/was-standard-railroad-g… So, nice story. Not true.

And what's funny, is that originally, this 3/4 minutes formula is likely more tied to physical constraints than marketing/human psychology: https://www.vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-songs-3-minutes-long Which reminds a bit of http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html as well.

> Which reminds a bit of http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html as well. TL;DR - the legend that the width of the shuttle SRBs is derived from a design decision about cart width that goes back to the Romans. But it's actually a bit more complicated than that... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard-gauge_railway

See also: The relationship from horse to space shuttle. http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Almost certainly EBCDIC: http://www.astrodigital.org/digital/ebcdic.html EBCDIC has discontinuities in the same places, I-J and R-S.

I like the fact that a part of the space shuttle's design can be traced back to Roman times: http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Related: Why the space shuttle size is related to a horse's back end :) http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

I was hoping to see the famous story of path dependency that traces the dimensions of shuttles back through the history of rail gauges back to Roman chariots and the width of two horses http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Asker of the question here, you are indeed spot on, Windows 95 was the first OS I used! The train of reasoning here reminds me of another story (which I think has been on HN before): Why is a space shuttle engine 4' 8.5" wide? http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Here's a longer version of the Roman two-horse story and how it impacted space shuttle design: http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Reminds: http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Well sorry, for that. Get a piece of paper and try it. The drake equation isn't too hard. It is just a bunch of probabilities multiplied by an amount of stars. You can even add your own terms if you don't like the one you have, but generally doing this takes yo further from the science... Anyway, Here is a simple description I snagged from google search [1]: > The Drake Equation is: > N = R * fp * ne * fl * fi * fc * L > > where: > N = The number of broadcasting civilizations. > R = Average rate of formation of suitable stars (stars/year) in the Milky Way galaxy > fp = Fraction of stars that form planets > ne = Average number of habitable planets per star > fl = Fraction of habitable planets (ne) where life emerges > fi = Fraction of habitable planets with life where intelligent evolves > fc = Fraction of planets with intelligent life capable of interstellar communication > L = Years a civilization remains detectable Now grab a pen and cocktail and make the math do whatever you want. I think that is you stick to realistic numbers you will get reasonably high values. But we might just disagree there. [1] http://www.astrodigital.org/astronomy/drake_equation.html